Killing of Jews in Kovno by Lithuanian nationalists under the eyes of the SS in June 1941. When the SS mobile killing units reached Kovno in the first few days of the war against the Soviet Union, they persuaded the anti-communist partisan leader Klimatis to turn his forces against the Jews, to demonstrate that "the liberated population had resorted to the most severe measures against the ... Jewish enemy." The pogrom - in which 5,000 Jews were killed - was filmed and photographed by the SS.